


6 AM Sharp

by collegefangirl3791



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Art, Artist Steve Rogers, Ballerina Natasha Romanoff, Brock is evil and creepy, Catholic Steve Rogers, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Depression, F/M, Hydra is a terrorist organization, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mostly related to Steve's appearance, Natasha Romanov Feels, Oblivious Steve Rogers, Past Abuse, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Slight WinterWitch, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve is Awkward, and Natasha's past, and will be doing bad things, oblivious everyone really
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-07-14 11:53:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7169957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/collegefangirl3791/pseuds/collegefangirl3791
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha Romanoff works at her friend Clint's coffee shop, where he offered her a fresh start a few years back. She doesn't want to trust her heart to anyone, not anymore, so when a scrawny little guy comes in asking for black coffee with a perfect smile on his face, she's determined not to let herself love him.</p><p>Steve Rogers is a poor artist with a shitty job at SHIELD Design Co. who might have a crush on the red-headed barista who talks to him every morning before work... But nobody cares about somebody like him, so he decides never to let himself love her.</p><p>And if we're honest, Bucky and Clint just like messing with their best friends. A lot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Drop In the Ocean

_And still I can't let you be_

_Most nights I hardly sleep_

_Don't take what you don't need from me_

_A drop in the ocean_

_A change in the weather_

_I was praying that you and me might end up together_

_It's like wishing for rain as I stand in the desert_

_But I'm holding you closer than most 'cause you are my heaven_

Natasha forced a smile, handing the grumpy customer his triple shot latte. "Have a nice day!" she said, purposefully making her voice a bit too chirpy and sweet. The man growled something rude, flipped her the bird, and took his drink.

She hated these early morning customers, with their miserably tired voices and perpetual scowls. As much as she enjoyed her job, it never quite made up for how rude some of these people were.

"What did that cup ever do to you?" Clint gestured to her hand. She realized she'd been clenching her hand around an empty coffee cup, and with a sigh she threw it away.

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize to me," her partner snorted. "Apologize to the line you're holding up."

"Shit!" Natasha grimaced and elbowed Clint, moving past him to take the next order. "Sorry about that."

The customer next in line was a scrawny guy with floppy blond hair and the kindest blue eyes she'd ever seen. He looked about her height, but he wasn't standing up straight; there was a curve to his spine that suggested scoliosis. "No problem," he said, smiling. He had a Brooklyn accent and a voice was disproportionately deep and resonant for his size. At least _he_ was in a good mood. "Tall coffee, black, extra shot of caffeine."

She laughed. "You sure about that?" The size he was, that much caffeine would probably make him vibrate with excess energy all day. She entered his order in the machine anyway.

"Yep." He handed her a five dollar bill to pay, and she expertly rang up the purchase and counted out his change.

"And what's the name to go with this order?"

The guy grinned, starting to walk away from the counter. "Steve."

Natasha smiled, told Clint Steve's order, and kept working.

She was surprised to realize, about an hour later when the morning rush slowed slightly, that Steve was still there, seated at a high table by the window with what looked like a sketchbook in front of him, his lips pursed thoughtfully as his hand moved quickly over the paper. He'd probably finished his extra-caffeinated coffee a while ago, but he hadn't gotten up to throw away the cup. She wondered, absentmindedly, what he was drawing, but then Clint started making kissing noises in her ear and she had to turn around to smack him.

It was another half hour or so (a busy one for the coffee shop) before Natasha noticed Steve hopping off his chair, throwing away his empty cup, and making his way outside with his sketchbook in hand.

She told herself she wasn't disappointed; Steve was just a customer who happened to be nice at six in the morning and she didn't need to keep being curious about what he needed all that caffeine for and what he was drawing.

Never mind that the guy was actually pretty cute and had a smile to put the sun to shame.

As the weeks passed, however, little Steve with his extra shot of caffeine and sketchbook slipped her mind, and she worked the café much as she always did.

The coffee shop was Clint's personal business. It had been nothing but a small place on a forgotten street corner before his big break. Then, one ordinary Tuesday, Tony Stark had visited and liked the coffee and food so much that he bought them a new building and started sponsoring them. Clint wasn't going to turn up his nose at an offer like that when he was barely making a living with the place before, so now he owned the most popular coffee place in New York besides chain places like Starbucks. Tony still visited at least once a week to buy a breakfast sandwich and a caramel frappuccino, which was good for business and a lot of fun.

"Good morning, Natasha!" Tony liked to announce his presence as dramatically as possible; this Monday that meant that he strode through the door, whipped off his sunglasses, and tossed them across the room. A college student pulled her headphones out of her ears and sheepishly retrieved the glasses from the floor, obviously unsure what to do with them.

"Hey Stark." Natasha rolled her eyes at him fondly. "Your usual?"

"Yep. That's why they call it a usual, honey." Nat huffed in irritation and threw an orange at Tony; he caught it without even blinking and began peeling it. "And kid, keep the sunglasses," he added, turning to grin at the young woman still waiting for someone to tell her what to do. "I bet if you sell them on eBay you could be rich."

"Oh, lay off, Tony," Clint said, vaulting over the counter to slug the billionaire in the shoulder. Tony handed Clint his credit card, as he always did. They liked to joke that he was too lazy to make his purchases at the counter like a normal person, but the fact of the matter was that they'd found it fun to play along with his celebrity status to see the expressions on people's faces.

Natasha went to work making his breakfast sandwich with Maria's help (two fried eggs, five strips of extra crispy bacon, a few pieces of melting cheese), and for a moment didn't notice who'd just walked in.

"What can I get for you today?" Clint could be very calm and professional when he chose to be.

"Tall black coffee, extra shot of caffeine."

Natasha paused as she flipped an egg, glancing back. Sure enough, the familiar baritone voice belonged to Steve. He was just as cheerful and sweet-looking as she remembered. He caught her eye and raised an eyebrow.

Maria nodded at her, a silent _'I've got this'_ , and Natasha left the food to say hello. "Steve, right?"

"Yeah." The guy seemed surprised she'd remembered him. "You have a good recall," he said appreciatively.

"No, you just made quite the impression the first time you came in."

When Steve blushed, his face and neck and the tips of his ears turned bright red, and for a moment he looked so cute that Natasha almost giggled. "That's not somethin' people normally say," he snorted.

"Who doesn't take note of an artist who sits in the same spot for two hours drinking super-caffeinated coffee?"

"Okay, if you two would stop flirting and let me finish serving the customers…" Clint grumbled, elbowing Natasha in the ribs. Now it was her turn to blush, scowling and smacking her friend's arm.

"Shut up, Barton."

Steve laughed at them, tossing his head back in genuine amusement, and Natasha decided that was one of the more attractive sights she'd ever seen.

She finished making Tony's sandwich, took the frappuccino from Clint, and walked out from behind the counter to give Tony his order. Then, confirming that her coworkers had the remaining customers well in hand, she detoured to the table where Steve had seated himself.

"Hey," she said, crossing her arms. "Sorry about my boss. He has no filter." She tried to get a look at what Steve was drawing, but he hid it with one thin arm.

"It's fine. I've got a friend like that," he answered. "He thinks it's his job to embarrass me. Actually, he's pickin' me up when I'm done here."

"Can't you drive?" she teased.

Steve snorted, exasperation clear on his features, and she realized that it was probably a tasteless joke. "Yes, I can drive," he scoffed. "But we're gonna visit my mom after this and my car's in the shop."

Natasha went to apologize, then caught the mischievous glint in his eyes and grinned slowly. "So… why the early hours and the super strong coffee? I'd have pegged you for a cream and sugar guy. Peppermint mocha, maybe, or cinnamon hot cocoa."

Steve shrugged, looking down sheepishly. "Yeah, well... People make a lot of assumptions about me. Most of 'em way off." Then that sunny smile was back, and he lifted his sketchbook. "But to answer your question: the coffee and early mornings are so I have time to get some extra drawin' done before work. Normally I go to Starbucks, but sometimes it's too crowded, so I come here."

"What's your job?"

"Interior designer." He grimaced. "At least, that's what I tell people. I'm actually a glorified secretary at the design company. It's a shitty job and equally shitty pay, but it's what I wanna be doing, and sometimes I get to help with my boss's projects."

Natasha frowned sympathetically. "Couldn't you quit?"

He shrugged. "I could, but it took me a long time to get this job, and I can already barely afford coffee."

"Fair enough."

The door opened, and a tall, muscular man sauntered in, piercing grey eyes searching the coffee shop. He was smirking, and the expression was natural on his face, like he woke up every morning satisfied with himself and the world. He didn't, Natasha decided. People like him were all too often hiding things behind their arrogant expressions, and there was a familiar look in his grey eyes, one that said "I know about pain."

"Can I help you?" Clint asked.

"I'll let you know," the man answered.

Steve grinned, standing up and grabbing his things, and Natasha realized with a jolt of surprise that this must be the friend he was waiting for. Once again, the little guy had upset her expectations. It embarrassed her that she'd automatically assumed his friend was some mousy little guy, maybe another artist.

"Hey Buck!"

"There you are, punk. We goin' or not?"

"Yeah, yeah, sure." Steve threw away his coffee cup and tucked his pencil behind his ear. "I've been waitin' for you, jerk. You're late."

His friend started to go, then met Natasha's eyes and smiled, slow and charming. She almost laughed at how fast his focus switched. "Hey, beautiful," he said, and Steve groaned.

"Would you leave her alone, Bucky? Seriously. We're supposed to be going to see Mom."

"Aren't you going to introduce us, Steve?" Natasha said, teasing.

Steve gave her a look like _don't encourage him_ , but sighed and said, "Bucky, this is… oh crap, I'm sorry, what _is_ your name?"

Natasha laughed, covering her mouth with one hand. She'd never told Steve her name. How weird was that? She knew and remembered his name, but didn't bother telling him hers? "So you're Bucky?" she managed, holding out her left hand for Steve's friend to shake. To her surprise, the man hesitated, then held out his right hand, and she switched hands without asking about it. Now that she looked more closely, she realized that his left arm looked slightly stiff, and he was wearing a glove over that hand.

"Yep, that's my name. Yours?"

"Natasha," she said, glancing at Steve as she did.

"Nice name." Bucky smirked, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "You know Stevie?"

"Kind of."

Steve explained. "I've come in here twice for coffee, and I guess she's really bored or else doesn't see a lot of interestin' people, 'cause she was curious about my drawings."

More accurately, Natasha was curious about Steve, but she wasn't going to say that.

"Excuse me, can't help but overhear…" Tony broke into the conversation, walking over, still slurping his frappuccino. Steve looked like he was going to have a heart attack, and when he started wheezing a bit, Natasha shot Tony a murderous scowl. The scrawny guy pulled an inhaler out of his pocket, however, and got himself back under control.

It certainly wasn't the worst reaction Tony had ever gotten.

"What the hell, Tony?" Natasha grumbled, crossing her arms.

"What? They said you never met anyone interesting, and I mean, I think I count as interesting, so…"

"No, you're as dull as a brick and twice as hard to stomach," Clint hollered from behind the counter.

Steve chuckled, a tentative sound of amusement like he was still embarrassed, while his friend Bucky snorted and shot Clint an appreciative look.

"Chill out, guys, I don't bite," Tony said, smirking. "Not unless you want me to."

"Seriously, Stark?" Natasha groaned. "That wasn't even original."

"No, but it got the desired reaction."

That was true; Steve had turned the color of a ripe strawberry. Bucky was just smirking again. "I might take you up on that," he snarked.

Tony burst out laughing, and Clint abandoned the register to join the conversation. He'd found himself a kindred spirit, Natasha could tell, which was going to be bad. "Clint," he said, nodding to Bucky and Steve.

"Bucky Barnes." The handsome guy nodded, lips curling mischievously. "As much as I'd like to keep chattin', we need to get going."

Steve's eyes darkened (Natasha thought they looked like the ocean, changing from blue to dark grey) and he nodded. "Right. Seeyah guys, and nice meeting you, Mr. Stark."

"Thanks, squirt," Tony said flippantly. "And it's Tony."

Steve frowned but didn't comment on the nickname. Bucky slung an arm around the smaller man's shoulders, and the familiar gesture made Natasha curious. The two were obviously close, and she wondered if maybe they were more than friends. Boyfriends, maybe? The thought gave her a pang, and she immediately felt ridiculous. She'd met Steve twice and he'd only just learned her name. Just because he was cute and gentlemanly and cheerful and artistic and… shit. She dismissed those thoughts and strode back behind the counter.

Steve started coming to the coffee shop every day after that, striding through the door at 6 o'clock sharp, always ordering his super-juice coffee and occasionally a bagel with extra cream cheese. Sometimes Bucky came with him, and when he did he typically sat alone at a table enjoying a smoothie and watching the people around him with a kind of comfortable wariness. It turned out he had a prosthetic arm, which Tony saw one day, prompting him to promise to design a better one for him. After a lot of arguing, Bucky finally accepted the offer.

Two weeks later, Steve walked through the door with a swollen nose, split lip, and a black eye. He was as good-natured as ever, despite the fact that he looked like he'd been mugged. Natasha swallowed back her worried questions as he got in line, fidgeting. He was limping slightly.

"Hey Steve," she said carefully. She was almost afraid to ask what had happened to him. Irrational, she knew, but there had been mornings when Clint asked her what happened and she had to lie to him... She gritted her teeth and smiled. "Your usual?"

He chuckled. Warm and hopeful. "No, I'm thinkin' I want a raspberry mocha this mornin'."

She raised an eyebrow. "Who are you and what did you do with Steve?"

He crossed his arms, grinning. His knuckles were bruised. "Maybe a ham and cheese breakfast sandwich, too."

Alright then. He'd never seemed interested in either menu item before. So much for his pre-made black coffee (she'd taken to having his usual order ready for him ahead of time). Still, she rung up his new order and accepted a handful of cash. Something tight and worried in her gut eased; he seemed okay. Of course, maybe he was just a good liar, like she was... As she moved to make his order, letting Clint work the register, she called, "So what happened?"

Steve laughed. "Nothing. I'm fine."

She felt strange at that. _Nothing, I'm fine_. "No you aren't," she said, a bit too forcefully. "What happened?"

He looked down, flushed with embarrassment. "I got in a fight. Outside a bar. Some jerk was hitting his girlfriend, so I punched him." He didn't say any more, but Natasha realized, with a pang of sympathetic amusement, that Steve had probably gotten his ass kicked. So she didn't press him for details, instead focusing on his drink and trying to ignore the delicious, warm feeling pulsing in her veins because of course little Steve Rogers, the black coffee drinker with a stubborn streak a mile wide, would be the sort of person to get in a fight to protect someone else. She wondered how often Bucky, with his muscular, imposing figure, had to step in and help Steve out. Probably too often.

She finished the cappuccino and handed it directly to Steve before going to work on his sandwich.

"How are you?" he asked, accepting the drink.

"I'm good," she said honestly. "Been a busy day."

"That's good." Steve leaned against the counter, watching her work, and she felt oddly self-conscious. "Tired?"

"Not really. Kinda."

The artist smiled and settled onto one of the stools by the counter, instead of his usual window seat, digging into his backpack for his sketchbook and a pencil. She'd become familiar with the sight of the small, black-covered sketchbook in his hand, the edges of the pages stained with paint.

He curled one arm around the book as he drew, and she focused on cooking, trying to pretend that she didn't care what he was drawing.

She wished she'd known Steve a long time ago. Wished she'd known him before she met Brock and everything went to hell. Maybe then she… but no, she'd been someone else before. She'd been someone who wouldn't have given Steve Rogers a second glance.

He really didn't make a big impression, physically. His shoulders curved forward, making him look even smaller than he was. He was short, with thin arms and a thin chest and thin legs and… well, he was just thin. His jaw and other facial features were strong (still thin), and he had asthma and pale skin. He looked as if a stiff breeze might blow him over. And yet his eyes blazed with fire and he stood straight and proud, a cheerful smile tugging at his lips. Even hunched over his drawing, he exuded a sense of strength and authority. How did he do that?

Maybe the old Natasha wouldn't have given Steve the time of day, but now? Now she acknowledged that he was something special.

"Got any plans today?" he asked casually as she assembled the completed parts of his sandwich. From anyone else, that might've sounded like a pick-up line, maybe a precursor to asking her to dinner. But he kept his eyes on his drawing, tracing what was maybe a rough circle (it was starting to really irk her that she couldn't see the paper), completely focused. She knew enough about people to know that if Steve was fixing to ask her out, he wouldn't be this calm.

"Not really. My shift ends at four and then I'm going home and eating frozen pizza for dinner."

Steve looked up, then, chewing on his bottom lip. "That all?"

"Yeah."

He hesitated, and there at last was a flash of nervousness in his eyes as he gave a sheepish smile and said, "Bucky invited Clint to this pizza and movie night thing later. It's just me and Bucky and my friend Peggy, usually, but Clint was coming and I thought… I thought maybe it'd be cool if you came. I mean, Pizza Hut isn't much better than frozen pizza, but it might be more fun."

Natasha almost said yes right away, without thinking. Steve was nice, Steve was sweet, she wanted to be his friend… And she didn't think she should. Not because there was anything wrong with him but because she could picture herself (all too easily) falling for this little Brooklyn artist. So she hesitated, wiped a counter, ignored Maria pointedly elbowing her in the back, and said carefully, "I'm not sure."

Steve slumped slightly, and she cursed the disappointed expression on his face. If he knew how much like an abandoned puppy he looked…

Maria elbowed her again, and she bit back a sigh and turned on her. "What?" she hissed.

"Just go," Maria said. "It's not like it's just going to be you two, and he isn't really asking for a lot."

That was the problem. Everyone was always asking for something; everyone had an angle. But she nodded anyway as if Maria had given some kind of genius argument, turned around, and grinned (too) brightly at Steve. "Alright, I'll be there."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I finally caved and wrote a Romanogers coffee shop au.
> 
> This story might not get very far; I've only ever managed to keep a few multi-chapter fics going. But hopefully I can with this one.
> 
> Please review!


	2. Lean On

_What will we do when we get old?_

_Will we walk down the same road?_

_Will you be there by my side?_

_Standing strong as the waves roll over_

_When the nights are long_

_Longing for you to come home_

_All around the wind blows_

_We would only hold on to let go_

_Blow a kiss, fire a gun_

_We need someone to lean on_

_Blow a kiss, fire a gun_

_All we need is somebody to lean on_

Steve bent over his drawing to hide the goofy smile on his face. He didn't know why he was so excited; Natasha's acceptance of his invitation had been hesitant at best, begrudging at worst. But she _had_ accepted.

"It's just at my apartment," he said, turning the page of his sketchbook to scribble down the address and time. "We don't know what we're watching yet."

"That's fine." Her smile, which had been uncomfortably forced, softened into a warm expression like she was actually happy. Her eyes were mesmerizing, which was becoming a serious problem; he'd done so many drawings of those eyes recently, trying to get them right. If she ever saw his pictures... Gosh, she'd think he was so creepy.

"Okay, great, well..." He stumbled to a stop, wincing. "I should go to work now." He gestured vaguely at the door, hesitant. _Smooth, Rogers._

How many times was he going to embarrass himself because of this crush? He always managed to make himself look stupid around her. Making black coffee his usual? How the hell had he managed that?

She'd thought it was interesting, which, if he was honest, was the real reason he kept ordering it. Never mind that black coffee was usually what he drank when he was feeling particularly depressed because it fit his mood. He wasn't going to tell her that at this point. God forbid he ever have to.

He collected his things and hurried out of the cafe, clutching his cappuccino against his side with his forearm so he could stuff his sketchbook into his backpack.

He drove to work with the radio on as loud as it could go without bursting his eardrums. God also forbid Natasha ever find out how much pop he listened to. Mostly because Bucky already teased him about it too much and he didn't need Natasha teasing him too.

SHIELD Design Co. was a pretentious business with an even more pretentious building: floor after floor of glass windows, sleek and emblazoned with the design company's logo. Steve thought they took themselves too seriously; they had a strict dress code and excessive security measures.

He was stopped in the entryway (as he was every morning), so that security could search his backpack and check his lanyard. Then he had to have his eye scanned and his ID checked before he walked into the building with his usual long-suffering sigh. Occasionally he wondered if there was a reason (besides paranoia) why an ordinary interior design firm felt the need to have such extreme security, but most of the time he just bit back the snarky comments he wanted to make to the security guards and endured the protocol.

Skye waved happily at him from her seat; she worked the front desk most mornings and made fun of all the employees as they came in. She was the only person besides Bucky that Steve let tease him about his size.

"Hey, Steve!" she called. "You're late!"

"Thanks, Skye, I noticed," he snorted, saluting her and rolling his eyes.

He made his way to the elevator, and once inside pressed the button to take him to the fifteenth floor, where his nice (if small) office was situated. While he waited to arrive at his floor, he dug his cellphone out of his pocket to check his assignments for the day; unfortunately, there were no real designs that needed to be done. Just a lot of paperwork.

Nick Fury nodded to him as he made his way to his own office. Fury was both the head of security and the head of PR. How he did both, Steve wasn't sure, but however he managed it, he was one of the most successful men at SHIELD. Steve wished Fury was his boss (he was a hardass but fair), but he was stuck with Alexander Pierce, king of passive-aggression and thinly-veiled threats.

Steve set his stuff down at his desk, then let out a tired sigh and got to work. Another day of useless work that Pierce claimed would help him advance in the company but which, he had to admit, would probably get him nowhere.

He hadn't been completely honest with Natasha when he told her why he didn't quit. The real reason was that he needed to keep paying his mom's medical bills.

She had cancer. Lung cancer. They didn't think she could recover; it was the second time she'd had it and it was worse this time around.

Steve wanted a different job, but he needed the stability of this one for his mom's sake. So he gritted his teeth, opened one of Pierce's overly specific assignments, and got to work.

...

By the time he arrived home that evening, he was thoroughly exhausted and sick of people. He flopped down on the couch and got a book off the coffee table. _The Little Prince_. One of his favorites.

He read for about ten minutes before realizing that if he didn't get up and do something else he'd fall asleep on the couch, so with an effort he got up and started listlessly straightening his living room. If Bucky came in here he'd probably give Steve a lecture; he was a neat freak (a side effect of his time in the Special Forces) and hated how messy Steve's apartment got sometimes. Steve didn't exactly want Nat seeing what a mess it was either, so he cleaned. He straightened bookshelves and dusted tabletops and vacuumed and did dishes and threw away the bad food in his fridge and cleaned the toilet and the bathroom sink and even washed the windows.

Then he realized that it was almost six and he'd cleaned his apartment to perfection, which meant two things: 1, Natasha was going to be here soon, and 2, he was nervous.

Thankfully, Bucky showed up before anyone else, a two-liter bottle of pop in one hand and his sunglasses in the other.

"Hey punk," he said, grinning and setting the soda down on the kitchen counter. "You nervous?"

"How could you tell?" Steve said sarcastically. He cleaned sometimes, sure, but when he got upset or nervous or depressed, he cleaned like a maniac. "I invited Natasha to come."

"Ohhh." Bucky raised an eyebrow, chuckling. "So you're scared about your ex meetin' your new girlfriend. I get it- hey!" Steve had whacked him in the stomach with a scrub brush. "Alright, alright, no need to get touchy, Stevie."

Steve huffed and rolled his eyes. "Natasha is not my girlfriend, Buck, and she ain't likely to be. So just shut up tonight, okay?"

"Hm. Sure. Fine. Whatever you say." Bucky ran a hand through his long hair and went over to Steve's fridge to grab a beer. "This is all I'm havin' tonight."

"Got it."

Bucky always had Steve put a cap on his drinking; he hated being drunk because he lost control of himself. However, they both knew that if he started drinking he might not want to stop, so Steve was in charge of how much alcohol he got at any given time.

About five years ago, Bucky started his first tour in the military Special Forces. Steve had been proud of him, if a bit jealous. They gave him a send-off party; there were lots of tears and hugs from Steve's mom and lots of silent misery from Steve. So he left and everything seemed fine until a year later, when Steve got a phone call and they told him that Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes was missing in action. Some of his friends had stepped on an IED. He was close to the blast at the time. Nobody knew if he'd been killed; they never found a body.

Steve spent two years wondering what happened to his best friend. His depression, which had been mild before Bucky left, took a nasty turn. He couldn't do anything to help, his mom was going through chemo, and Peggy, although she'd been terribly sorry to do so, had to break up with him because she wanted to pursue her career and realized that marriage was not for her. She had tried to stay in Steve's life as much as she could, because he had no one else, but he still felt alone and isolated. He still regretted a lot of things he'd done then.

It had been a particularly bad day, he remembered, when the next phone call came. "Are you James Buchanan Barnes' next of kin?"

"Yes." He was. Bucky's family was dead, and Steve was the closest thing he had to a brother. He'd stood there, in his kitchen, cold, scared, lonely, arm throbbing. Waiting for them to tell him what he'd come to accept: that Bucky was dead.

"We found him."

The person on the other end of the phone wisely waited for a response before continuing, because Steve's legs were buckling and he had to lean against the counter, shocked, unable to choke out any kind of reply. Twenty long heartbeats. "You what?"

"He's in the hospital in D.C. He was found two days ago."

"What happened to him? Where was he? Can I-?"

They forestalled his questions, telling him what hospital Bucky was in and saying they'd explain the details when Steve got there. So he'd called his mom, telling her what happened in a stammering voice as he booked a flight.

He remembered, too, listening numbly as the officials explained that Bucky had been a POW for two years and wasn't himself. They threw around phrases like "complex PTSD" and "situation-specific amnesia" and "severe depression", all of which Steve interpreted to mean "broken" as he walked in the hospital room and saw Bucky muttering to himself, left arm a mutilated stub, scars and fresh wounds on display wherever his hospital gown or bandages didn't cover them.

That kind of thing wasn't supposed to happen to Bucky.

The next year was hell for his best friend. He couldn't live by himself; he had to move into Steve's apartment. He had flashbacks and nightmares, he started hurting himself and intentionally putting himself in dangerous situations. Steve stopped getting in fights so that Bucky wouldn't have an excuse to put himself in harm's way. He sacrificed a lot for his best friend, managing to put his own needs on hold because he had to.

The terrorists who had captured Bucky killed themselves when he was rescued, so nobody knew who they were or what they wanted, not even Bucky. He barely remembered what had happened, which caused him to be paranoid that the people who'd captured him could be anywhere. He got nervous going places alone, anyone touching the stump where his arm had been made him panic (which became a problem when he finally agreed to be fitted for a prosthetic), and he admitted to Steve that he'd almost forgotten his own name by the time he was found.

He was doing better now, but many nights he still phoned Steve for help, humiliated and embarrassed but desperate because his memories wouldn't leave him alone.

Tonight, though, Bucky smiled and popped the cap off his beer and tilted his head back to take a few quick gulps. "That's the stuff," he said, winking.

There was a knock on the door, solid and familiar, and before Steve could answer, Peggy strode in, perfect brown curls tucked up under a newsboy cap. "Hello, boys," she said, smiling. Steve still got a bit of a pang whenever he saw her; she was his first love and he'd always have a soft spot for her, even if it hadn't ended up working out for either of them.

She set down a medium-sized wooden bowl on the counter. Salad, as usual. She didn't like pizza very much and claimed that she had to stay in shape because she was a cop. That was a terrible excuse when one considered how much she liked Taco Bell.

"How are you two?"

"Gettin' by," Bucky rumbled, smiling a little.

"What he said." Steve got his own beer out of the fridge.

Peggy smiled. "What are we thinking we're going to watch?"

"Dunno. Figured we could let Clint and Natasha pick, since it's their first time comin'," Bucky answered. "Make 'em think they're special, just this once."

She raised an eyebrow, her British voice pitching up with interest. "You told me about Clint. Who's Natasha?"

Steve was quick to answer before Bucky could, ignoring his friend's shit-eating grin. "She's Clint's friend. She works at the coffee shop and she's pretty cool."

Unfortunately, Peggy seemed to take his explanation the same way Bucky did, and smiled mischievously. "Good for you, Steve!"

He groaned and shook his head. "I oughta unfriend both of you."

Before he could do that, though, there was another knock on the door, and he went to open it. It was, of course, Natasha and Clint. And Steve had to fight very hard not to blush and stare because Natasha looked stunning. She was wearing her hair down, which she never did while at work, and a grey Batman t-shirt and red sneakers. It was the most casual he'd seen her, and he couldn't stop a stupid smile at the sight.

"Hey guys!" He stepped out of the way so they could come in.

Clint scanned his apartment thoughtfully, spotted the beer Bucky was sipping, and nodded decisively. "Any more of that?" he asked.

"Yep." Bucky opened the fridge and handed him a drink. "What kinda pizza do you guys want?"

Clint and Natasha both said "Hawaiian" at the same time, prompting Steve and Bucky to make disgusted faces at the same time.

"Pineapple on pizza is an abomination," Bucky grumbled, shaking his head. "You're officially uninvited."

Steve dialed Pizza Hut's number on his phone and ordered, with a wrinkled nose, one large Hawaiian pizza, a taco pizza, and some breadsticks. While he did that, Bucky and Clint argued with Natasha and Peggy about what movie to watch. The girls apparently wanted to watch _The Princess Bride_ , while Bucky and Clint were campaigning for _The Force Awakens_. Steve pocketed his cellphone, and instantly they all asked him to break the tie.

For a minute he considered saying Princess Bride, just because Natasha wanted it, but he hadn't seen the new Star Wars yet, so he shrugged apologetically and said, "Star Wars."

"Traitor!" Peggy shouted.

"I understood that reference!" Clint crowed happily, pointing at her. "We're watching it."

So they did. Peggy drove to Redbox to pick up the film, and got back only a few minutes before the pizza guy showed up with their pizza. Bucky stayed clear of him; certain men made him nervous, usually the sort with tattoos and scowls and a somewhat rugged appearance that looked as if they were contract killers on weekends.

He was fine once the delivery guy left.

Everyone grabbed their pizza and sat down. Peggy already seemed to like Natasha, although she also seemed a little wary of her. But she was a cop, so that was her thing.

"How'd you meet Steve?" she asked, pouring herself some soda.

"He came to Clint's café a few weeks ago and he's started coming in pretty much every morning," Natasha said lightly.

Peggy pursed her lips and nodded. Steve wondered what she was thinking.

Bucky and Clint claimed they _really_ wanted to sit on the floor, and Peggy commandeered the armchair, which meant that Steve and Natasha ended up on the couch together. Steve couldn't help blushing as he sat down, shooting Bucky a frustrated scowl. Not that he didn't want to sit with Natasha, but it was the most obvious match-making tactic in the history of the world. Obvious enough that both he and Natasha would probably feel awkward about it all evening.

So he gave her a sheepish smile and a shrug as the movie started, and she rolled her eyes like _idiots_ , and Steve grinned because never mind, this would be fine. He took a big bite of his pizza and looked back at the TV, smiling broadly as the always-familiar Star Wars theme started playing.

He could get used to this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which I reveal Bucky's past and a little bit of Steve's thinking.
> 
> I'll be referencing/describing past abuse, self-harm, and depression. It shouldn't get too dark, but this won't be a sunny-happy story. In other words, read the tags.
> 
> Please review!


	3. Battle Scars

_Hope the wound heals but it never does_

> _That's cause you're at war with love_
> 
> _You're at war with love, yeah_
> 
> _These battle scars don't look like they're fading_
> 
> _Don't look like they're ever going away_
> 
> _They ain't never gonna change_
> 
> _These battle..._

Natasha pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them with a little sigh. She liked this movie a lot, even if it hadn't been her first choice. And she liked the company even better (although Peggy Carter made her nervous).

Much to her amusement, Steve was falling asleep. His blue eyes were half-closed, his cheek resting on his hand as he followed the on-screen action sleepily. She smiled a little, looking at him. People didn't sleep around her and she didn't sleep around them; that would require a level of trust and comfort that she had with no one except Clint. But there was Steve, comfortably drifting off to sleep on the couch next to a woman he barely knew.

Because he knew he was safe.

What would that be like, Natasha wondered, to trust so easily? Even when she was a child, she'd known better. Was Steve really so naïve? Or was that just what people were like when they'd had an easy life?

She looked away and met Bucky's eyes. He was watching her with a kind of narrow, thoughtful look. The two of them got along (there was a kind of grim camaraderie in the shared knowledge of pain), but he was very protective of Steve. So she gave him a little smile, as if to say _isn't he adorable_ , and Bucky smirked and returned his gaze to the TV.

When she glanced back at Steve a few minutes later, he had well and truly fallen asleep, his neck bent at a painful angle to rest against the arm of the couch, one hand hanging limply over the edge of the cushions. Bucky, without even looking, reached behind him and lifted the dangling limb back onto the couch. Natasha bit back a laugh and forced herself to focus on the movie rather than the little frown on Steve's face or the way he'd curled into a ball as if trying to stay warm.

* * *

Bucky shifted in his spot on the floor, trying not to be too conspicuous about it. Clint and Natasha had no idea, but the two of them being invited to this movie night was a little strange for him. It wasn't that he wasn't used to people – he'd gotten far better at having normal conversations and interactions over the past few months – it was just that this was Steve's house. It felt a lot more intimate, a lot more like a commitment of some kind.

He'd checked both of their backgrounds thoroughly. Clint was clean, although he had done some time for shooting someone, but Natasha… She bothered him. Everything about her checked out.

Checked out too well.

Nobody who watched themselves the way she did, nobody who acted as if everyone they met was a threat to be monitored the way she did, could have such a clean, comfortable past. She seemed perfectly ordinary, but then, so did he. Most of the time.

He could tell Steve liked her. He hadn't said anything yet, but it was obvious. Sometimes Steve wasn't aware just how much of an open book he was, which was almost comical. Of course, Bucky was also allowed to look in Steve's sketchbook when he wanted to, which meant that he'd seen all of his friend's somewhat impressive repertoire of drawings of Natasha. He'd "innocently" commented on them once, and _strangely enough_ Steve had flushed bright red and said they were nothing. The next time Bucky looked at the sketchbook, all the drawings of her were gone, probably torn out and sequestered in one of Steve's many art folders.

He couldn't help but worry about Steve. For all the years Bucky had known him, the scrawny guy had never quite learned not to trust so quickly. No matter how many times he got taken advantage of, he still kept believing the best of everyone. Everyone except the bullies he always got in fights with; he just went in and tried his hardest to kick their asses. He hadn't been doing that so much lately, but when Bucky asked him how he'd suddenly learned restraint, Steve just said something noncommittal about how he got a little tired of getting beat up all the time. That was complete and utter bullshit, but Bucky let it go. He got the feeling that it had something to do with him.

The movie was nearing its end when Bucky felt the sofa dip behind him, and he glanced back to see Natasha climbing nimbly over the back of the couch, hurrying silently to the apartment door, and, strangely, opening it and walking out.

He almost jumped up and went after her on instinct, but then he felt Clint tapping his shoulder and turned. "What?"

"It's fine." The other man was clearly referring to Natasha's sudden departure. "She does this sometimes, when she gets uncomfortable or nervous. She'll be back in a few minutes. Sorry," he whispered.

Bucky nodded. This all felt suspicious and wrong and off, but he told himself to calm down and pretend he didn't care. He was supposed to be making friends, and if that meant ignoring Natasha's strange behavior, then he would. For now.

* * *

Natasha hadn't gone far. She was just outside, leaning against the wall by the door. She felt weak and stupid, but she couldn't stay in that room any more. Things had been going so well this time.

But then Bucky had pulled his hair into a low bun and she'd caught sight of the tattoo peeking out from the collar of his shirt. The same tattoo Brock Rumlow had always had on his chest. A red skull with squid-like tentacles.

She had never been sure what the symbolism of that tattoo had been, but it still made her irrational heart skip a beat and she'd nearly panicked. It could be a coincidence, she kept telling herself that, but it was the same tattoo. Bucky had said he lost his arm to an IED, but what if he was lying? What if Brock had finally found her? She knew nothing about him, and barely anything about Steve. Had he ever really been in the army? If he hadn't, did Steve know? Did it matter? Why did she have to make so much out of a simple tattoo?

Her breathing had finally settled back to its normal rhythm, but she wasn't sure she wanted to go back in. Clint would understand if she explained it to him, and she didn't owe Bucky and Steve a thing. They probably weren't trustworthy anyway, or at least not Bucky. But she hesitated.

Because nobody who'd spent any time with Brock Rumlow would be the kind of person who could fall asleep in a group of strangers. And she didn't want to hurt Steve Rogers just on the off chance that his best friend was an associate of Brock's.

Besides, it was always wise to keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Taking a deep breath, she turned around and reopened Steve's door, slipping back in as silently as she'd gone. Realizing that the movie was nearly over, she went to the kitchen counter to get herself another slice of pizza.

As the credits rolled and everyone began stretching and standing, she took a bite out of the pizza and tried to look innocent. Clint shook his head just slightly at her.

Bucky shook Steve awake, and he stood and shuffled over to her, trying to fix his hair. He looked as if he was only half awake, and the way his voice slurred when he spoke was entirely too disarming. "Where'd you go?"

In answer, she held up her pizza with a sheepish smile. "I was still hungry."

Steve nodded, but behind him, Bucky's eyes were hard, and they said _liar_.

She tried to ignore him. She couldn't jump to conclusions, she couldn't be unfair to them like that.

But she had learned a long time that trust was too dangerous to give to just anyone. No matter how endearing their smile was, no matter how many days a week they sat down at a cafe table, sketchbook in hand, no matter how perfect they seemed. Actually, maybe he was the sort that she should trust least of all.

No one was as good as Steve Rogers seemed to be. Not in her experience.

Fortunately, Clint seemed to understand that she wanted to leave quickly, and made excuses for the both of them. _Un_ fortunately, as soon as they were out the door, he wanted her to explain.

"Natasha, what happened?"

"Nothing. It was stupid." She folded her arms over her chest and stared pointedly at the floor as they made their way down the apartment building stairs. She didn't want to explain it to him in case he either told her that she'd been irrational or (she couldn't decide whether this would be better or worse) he told her she was right to worry.

"Nothing, huh?" he said dryly. "I wish you'd just tell me. Bucky noticed you leaving and I think he has even more trust issues than you, because he got kinda suspicious."

"Why should I care what he thinks?" Natasha snapped waspishly. "If I'd've been worried about his or Steve's potential reaction, I would've stayed in the room. But I don't actually care what they think, Clint, so you can tell them to piss off, and while you're at it you can do the same."

Clint, to his credit, didn't seem the least bit offended as they stepped outside into the cool air of the autumn night. "That's not really what I meant. I just meant that Bucky was a soldier, so you just leaving like that might make him more nervous than it would most other people."

"I don't care," Natasha muttered, sighing. She did, a little. But she was too worried to let that change her stance.

"Just tell me what happened, Nat, please. You liked both of them well enough earlier. What changed?"

She sighed and slid into the front seat of his car, letting her head fall into her hands. "Brock used to have this tattoo on his chest. Red octopus with a skull for a head, like a skull and crossbones sort of thing. I don't know if it meant anything or if it's a band symbol or if maybe he just thought it was cool, but... Bucky's got the same tattoo. It's smaller and more faded but it's on the nape of his neck where his shirt mostly hides it."

Clint sat silently for a moment, hands on the steering wheel. "Are you sure it was the same tattoo?"

"I didn't get a long look," she said. "And I didn't see the whole thing, but I know. It's got to be the same."

Her friend nodded, frowning. He looked... worried. She waited for him to tell her she was overthinking this, ask her if she was having nightmares again. Instead, he said, "I can ban him from coming into the cafe if you want. I don't like coincidences, and I don't need my best employee getting nervous because of a regular customer." Clint glanced over at her with a kind smile. He was teasing her, but he meant every word, too.

How did she end up with a friend like him? Natasha thought about it, but she didn't think her suspicions were fair enough, or serious enough, to justify banning Bucky and, by extension, offending Steve. "No," she sighed. "Just... Can you take over the register when he's there?"

"Sure." Clint nodded. "Anything for you, Natasha. Short of murder or sharing French fries."

She snorted and whacked his arm as he put the car into gear and drove off.

...

The next day, Steve didn't show up at the cafe. Natasha couldn't help the disappointment she felt at his absence; he was always there, and whether she liked it or not, she had come to count on that. That was warning enough that she'd let her guard down too much. She should have known better. She shouldn't even care that he wasn't there.

Was he sick?

Had he gotten beaten up again?

A part of her, the paranoid side that had never really recovered from those years of hardship, said that they had probably realized that she had seen Bucky's tattoo and now they were telling Brock about her. Maybe the next time they came back he'd be with them.

But she didn't listen to her paranoid side any more than she could help it.

If she had been able to be honest with herself, she would have had to admit that she missed Steve and wished she'd never seen that tattoo and that she could just be friends with both men without worrying. But honesty had never been easy for her, and now that she wasn't even going by her real name, it was downright dangerous. So she took orders and smiled and did her level best to pretend that she wasn't glancing towards what she'd designated as Steve's side of the room every few minutes.

He came in the next day and ordered his usual black coffee with two shots of caffeine, gave her a cheerful smile, and didn't say a _single word_ to explain his absence the day before. She told herself she didn't care, but then couldn't help herself as he accepted his coffee from her with a funny little grimace.

"Where were you yesterday?"

The way his eyes lit up made her regret her question; he grinned and shrugged. "Why? Did you miss me?"

She almost wanted to smack him. "No," she said dismissively. _Liar_ , his eyes said. Did he learn that look from Bucky? Then again, knowing the way he and Bucky's friendship worked, he probably had. "I just wondered."

His smile faded a little, and he shrugged again. The look of wariness on his face was so unfamiliar and incongruous that Natasha thought for moment he really had discovered something awful about her. "I was helping someone out, is all," he said quietly. "Sorry. It's just not my story to tell." Then that brilliant smile was back, no worse for the wear, if a little embarrassed.

 _See, Romanoff_ , Natasha told herself. _Everything's fine._ She was just being too paranoid again.

Still, she couldn't help but keep half a careful eye on Steve for the rest of the time he was there, because nobody was as perfect as he was. Nobody.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the third chapter! Sorry it took me a while; a lot of my chapters will now, I'm afraid. I'm old enough that I need to be learning to drive and getting a job and so I'll be very busy. I'll still try to write as much as I can, but ya know.
> 
> Please review, darlings!


	4. You Belong With Me

_And you've got a smile_

_That could light up this whole town._

_I haven't seen it in a while_

_Since he brought you down._

_You say you're fine I know you better than that._

_Hey, what you doing with a boy like that?_

Steve felt bad for having to put Natasha off like that, but he'd meant it when he said it wasn't his story to share. He'd spent three hours, from midnight on, sitting with Bucky and talking him down from a panic attack.

Bucky hadn't called him this time; his neighbors had. They'd informed Steve that Bucky's dog wouldn't stop barking, so Steve had reluctantly climbed out of bed and into his car to go check on his friend.

Bucky had been crouched in a corner clutching a knife when Steve arrived. Thankfully, he hadn't used it on himself this time; it probably just made him feel safer to have a weapon available. Bucky's dog was curled up by his feet, licking the Sergeant's shaking fingers, when Steve walked in.

It took Steve a while to tease out of Bucky the explanation for his panic attack; Bucky eventually described how during the movie Natasha had walked out of the room and how Clint had excused Natasha's absence and the pizza delivery guy had made him nervous and it had all just made him uncomfortable. He'd obviously avoided calling Steve because he was ashamed of letting those things get to him, so Steve spent a long time reassuring him that it was okay and he didn't mind and he was sure that Natasha was just uncomfortable with so many new people.

So he'd ended up skipping the coffee shop the next morning so he could sleep in, instead going through the drive-thru window at Starbucks on the way to work and treating himself to a hot mocha with lots of whipped cream. And missing out on Natasha's company for one morning was almost worth it to hear her ask where he'd been with a frustrated look on her face.

She had noticed he was gone and cared enough to ask about it. Maybe she had missed him. He couldn't help but glance over at her as he seated himself at his usual table, feeling ridiculously like a teenager with a crush. She was squirting a tower of whipped cream onto a drink with a skilled twist of her wrist, expression calm and focused. Almost without his permission, his hand started sketching the outline of her figure on the open page of his sketchbook. He'd been trying to avoid drawing her too much when he was actually at the coffee shop, because that would require him to look at her. A lot. And Natasha seemed to have an unfortunate sixth sense for that sort of thing, because the few times he'd tried it she had almost immediately turned and met his gaze. Still, right now he couldn't quite help himself _(he was so screwed)_ , so he focused on his drawing and managed to draw the outline without Natasha catching him.

Unfortunately, he wasn't as safe as he thought, because he was just filling in her features (it was unmistakably her; he was very proud of how it was turning out) when a light cough from his right made him jolt, arm slamming down over the half-finished drawing and, in the same moment, sending his coffee cup flying across the table and crashing onto the floor. He cringed and slowly, carefully, closed his sketchbook before glancing over to his right, praying desperately that it wasn't _her._

It was.

Natasha's expression was the most uncommunicative he'd ever seen it, frozen in a questioning tilt of the eyebrows that could have been good or very, very bad – he wasn't sure. He knew his face was probably beet red and he desperately wanted to curl in on himself and maybe hide under the table. Instead, he scrambled off his chair mumbling something like "Sorry, I wasn't lookin' what I was doing," and grabbed his only napkin to crouch down and wipe the floor. It was pitiful and the whole situation made him feel as tiny and miserable as a worm caught on the sidewalk in a thunderstorm.

A minute later her hands (slender, graceful, braided ring on her middle finger) held out a wad of napkins to him and then started helping him to clean the floor. He didn't think he'd ever be able to glance above her hands ever again. That was okay though, she had nice hands. Bright blue nails. _Don't say anything, please._ Would it be better if he spoke up preemptively, apologized profusely right now and never came back to the coffee shop? Or should he act like nothing happened and hope she hadn't seen the picture?

God help him, he chose not to say anything.

Natasha stopped wiping the floor, and he knew it was clean but he couldn't stand to look up at her, so he stayed crouched and scrubbed half-heartedly at the tile. _Please go away, please go away,_ he pleaded silently.

Unfortunately, Natasha couldn't read his mind, and if she could, she was ruthless. "Why were you drawing me?" Her voice was dead quiet, with the flat, toneless quality of a person trying to mask strong emotion. Steve was liking his earlier idea of hiding under the table more and more.

"Just, you know, people studies. The angle was good and I'm not good at drawing people and I mean– Wait, no, no, no, please don't!"

Natasha was standing up and grabbing his sketchbook.

 _Oh God, please stop her,_ he prayed desperately, jumping up. Apparently God wasn't going to let him get away with his lies, though, because Natasha picked the book up and flipped it open casually. He couldn't help but feel a surge of betrayal; friends didn't go through each other's stuff like this. Well, Bucky did, but only when Steve didn't really mind.

And he definitely minded about this.

He was immensely relieved he'd filed away most of his drawings of her, but there were still three (maybe four) pictures of her left in the book. One very detailed depiction of her eyes, one of her watching the movie last night, and the one he'd been working on just now. The one he was really worried about was of her dancing; it was a product of his imagination and he suddenly couldn't remember if he'd torn it out or not. Because friends didn't draw each other based on imagined scenarios, either. God, he was _so stupid_.

He still couldn't read her expression. There was a lump in his throat and he wanted to hit something. What kind of pervert was he, anyway? Drawing pictures of people without permission? She would think he was a stalker or something. He couldn't stop praying frantically that _somehow_ this whole mess could be salvaged.

He already felt low enough that when she turned the page and saw the picture of herself dancing, for a moment he couldn't even find it in himself to be horrified. But then her face broke into an expression of such suspicion and anger that he took a few hasty steps back when she looked up at him.

"How did you know about this?" she hissed. And Steve, despite his terror, found himself falling in love with the way her eyes went hard and fierce and she drew herself up like some kind of fictional warrior queen.

God help him indeed.

"I just… I just… I thought you looked like a dancer and it's the way you move sometimes around the kitchen and I'm really sorry. I promise I didn't know and I'm so sorry, I know I'm a creep, I just… Sorry." He was stammering and blushing and he felt so, so horrible.

He really wouldn't complain if the ground opened up and swallowed him. That would be less embarrassing than this, and death had never scared him much anyway.

He wasn't sure whether Natasha's slight smile was a good thing, but he decided to assume it was. He needed a win.

"Calm down, Rogers," she said, and the stony coldness was gone as if it had melted away. Steve felt like he'd gotten whiplash from how fast her tone changed. "They're nice drawings." And then she walked away without another word.

 _Holy Mary Mother of God_. Steve sat shakily down on his chair again, feeling like he'd just been run over by a freight car.

* * *

Natasha knew that, outwardly, she looked composed as she walked away. A little sassy and amused. Sexy, even. She knew how to play situations to her advantage, after all. But inwardly, she felt as shaky and confused as a newly-standing foal. Steve's stammering little explanation and obvious humiliation, combined with the pictures, were so... It took all her willpower not to turn around and confront him. Make him tell her why he was drawing her, although a terrified part of her knew full well. The sketch of her dancing especially made her want to run and hide. She couldn't do this. She didn't want little Steve Rogers to... to feel whatever the hell he felt for her. It was just infatuation – it always was, she had no trouble acknowledging that she was good looking – but Steve was... Well, Steve was a problem. Because he was an artist and an earnest, sincere person and apparently a good friend and she was a little afraid that "just infatuation" wasn't a term in his vocabulary.

People like him (good people) never seemed able to realize that it wasn't safe to be around people like her.

And, unfortunately, good people gave their hearts away far too easily.

Clint's hand was steadying on her elbow as she went back to making drinks. "Are you okay?" he murmured.

"Yeah, it's okay," she sighed. "I just... It doesn't matter."

Clint nodded, but he still looked worried as he went back to work. She couldn't blame him; she was a little worried about herself too. She felt suddenly afraid to look over at Steve in case he was looking at her again. In case he was drawing her again. She could feel his eyes on her sometimes, but she refused to acknowledge him.

…

"Liho!" Pushing open her front door that evening felt like the first time she'd breathed all day. She shut it behind her and tossed her things onto the entryway table, letting out a long sigh. Her black cat, a lithe, sleek little thing with big green-blue eyes came trotting up to her, meowing insistently. "Hello, _dorogoy_. Have you been good for me today?"

The cat meowed again and weaved around her legs. Natasha smiled slightly and scooped her up, scratching the top of her head. "Let's get you some food."

As she always did, she checked over her house as she made her way into the kitchen. Nothing seemed to be disturbed, although she had yet to check for bugs. Some people might call her paranoid, but she had good reason to be.

…

_He was waiting for her in the apartment, seated on the couch, legs drawn up against his chest. "Hey Natalie," he said lightly._

_She should have seen the signs of his entrance but she hadn't; embarrassed, she moved around to sit next to him. "Hey."_

_"What's going on? You getting careless, honey?" he said with a quiet chuckle, slinging his legs over hers. She rolled her eyes at him._

_"No. You're just good." That was true. But it was also true that she'd gotten careless; just because she had the protection of the gang didn't make her safe._

_"Whatever you say." Brock picked up a beer bottle from the floor and tipped back a long swallow._

…

Sighing, she shook her head and got a bag of food out of the cupboard, pouring the cat food into Liho's bowl. Too many memories, good and bad, today. All because of that stupid tattoo and Steve's drawings.

Not that she wasn't flattered by his artwork – that was half the problem. She should know better than to let something like that get to her, but it had. She had thought that she had her feelings under control, but she was no longer sure.

She liked to tell herself she was good at guarding her heart. And she was, but not against people like him. Not against stammering and spilled coffee and beautiful drawings. She tried to remind herself that he wasn't safe, that she knew nothing about him, that he would never be able to know anything about her beyond the surface details. And still she wished she could let him be her friend. Maybe even something more.

"Hell." She groaned and picked Liho up, who squirmed and wailed at being disturbed from her dinner. "What kind of idiot am I, huh?"

Liho meowed insistently, and Natasha put her back down so she could keep eating.

The worst kind of idiot. The kind that saw their own stupidity and kept going anyway. What was that definition of insanity again? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Steve Rogers would cause more trouble than he was worth. She should just avoid him. She should stop all this now before it got out of control.

Even as she told herself those things, she knew she wasn't going to be able to do them. And she hated herself for it.

* * *

Steve spent almost the whole day at work distracted, replaying the humiliating morning mishap over and over in his mind until he was fairly sure he was never going to be able to face Natasha again. No matter how he spun the situation, there was no way to make it look any better. They'd only been friends (barely that, acquaintances) for a little over a month. He had no right to be drawing pictures like that of her - at least, not where she could see. Worse, he'd made her more work to do and tried to lie about what he was doing (although no one could exactly blame him for that). She was probably really pissed at him now. At the very least she was freaked out and Clint was going to deny him service tomorrow. Either way, he'd ruined the first new friendships he'd made in a long time.

Not that he was even surprised. He was good at screwing things up. It was probably his one and only talent at this point.

He stopped those thoughts as soon as he caught them, replacing them with the little list he'd made for himself with his therapist's help. _I'm a good friend, I'm intelligent, I'm an artist, I'm badass_ (Bucky's suggestion) _, I'm loved by God._ Sam said it wasn't enough to clear your thoughts, you had to replace them with something better. And Steve was trying.

It just wasn't easy.

He sighed and tried to focus on work. But all he succeeded in doing was sending a bill to the wrong person and prompting Pierce to come out of his office to yell at Steve for "laziness and inattention to detail." In the name of fairness, Steve admitted to the latter offense, making an excuse about how his mom wasn't doing well. Pierce, as per usual, didn't seem to care.

"You come in, Mr. Rogers, you drop the bullshit at the door. Okay? I'm not here to babysit you. You're never going to get anywhere in this company if you can't separate work and home."

Steve bit back the comment on the tip of his tongue. _I'm not going to get anywhere in this company anyway._

And spent the rest of the day fighting his embarrassment and insecurity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a fun one, yeah? I just won't give poor Stevie a break. He's just too cute when he's embarrassed.
> 
> I apologize (only not exactly), but Steve is gonna be a Catholic Christian and I just kinda can't keep that out of the story. Steve has always kind of been my fictional character soulmate, in a way. I feel like he's a lot like me. And my faith is just so important to me and it seems like he shares it in cannon SO... Sorry-not-sorry. You'll just have to put up with it. ;)
> 
> Thanks for continuing to read, and please review! :)


	5. Yellow Flicker Beat

_I'm a princess cut from marble, smoother than a storm.  
_ _And the scars that mark my body, they're silver and gold,  
_ _My blood is a flood of rubies, precious stones,  
_ _It keeps my veins hot, the fire's found a home in me.  
_ _I move through town, I'm quiet like a fight,  
_ _And my necklace is of rope, I tie it and untie._

_I dream all year, but they're not the sweet kinds  
_ _And the shivers move down my shoulder blades in double time  
_ _And now people talk to me, I'm slipping out of reach now  
_ _People talk to me, and all their faces blur_

_But I got my fingers laced together and I made a little prison  
_ _And I'm locking up everyone who ever laid a finger on me  
_ _I'm done with it._

* * *

 

_"That would be stupid of me," he growled. "That's not a fair counteroffer and you know it. I don't negotiate, Miss Rushman, particularly not with people who won't take me seriously." Something about the threatening cast of his voice and the sudden warning in his eyes told Natalie that he was about to reveal what he believed was his trump card, and she shot to her feet as the client opened his mouth to speak, whipping her gun out of its thigh holster and leveling it at his head._

_"Neither do I. Not with a sniper watching me from the window. He shoots me, you're dead at the same time and you don't get what you want. We do this my way or not at all. Is that clear?" She smiled dangerously and tightened her finger on the trigger of her weapon. This wouldn't be the first idiot to think he could come in and manipulate her, but it would be the first to actually target her with a sniper. Probably government, then. Or one of the bigger gang bosses._

_"Clear enough, sweetheart." The client smiled, broad and a bit lecherous. He was handsome, in a harsh yet charismatic way that made Natalie think he was probably not a government agent. "You're cool under pressure. I like that."_

_"And I like my clients to stick to business only," Natalie snapped, still holding her gun. "Now, the price I was asking…?"_

_"I can't go higher than five thousand."_

_"Then let's have five and a half and we'll be good."_

_"Deal." The man nodded. "The papers. You can send them to this address" – he slid her an envelope and a wad of cash – "for Brock Rumlow."_

_"Is that your name?" Natalie asked. She sold information. Someone might be interested to know that the city's biggest gang's leader was willing to pay so much for what she was giving him._

_He smiled, almost mockingly. "Are you a sexy little thing? The answer to both questions is, of course, yes. Have a good day, Miss Rushman." He turned his back and walked out, leaving Natalie somewhere between irritated and intrigued, leaning more towards the latter._

…

Wanda passed Natasha the chocolate drizzle. "You do realize Steve has been giving you nervous looks all day, right?" she murmured. "Whatever you did to him yesterday has him properly intimidated."

"He didn't just spill coffee, Wanda," Natasha said shortly, in answer to her friend's unspoken question. "But I'd rather not talk about it." She'd spent the first several hours of work believing that Steve wasn't going to come in today, but then he showed up at ten thirty, walking with a nervous shuffle and ordering his usual black coffee.

The younger woman raised an eyebrow, prompting Nat to turn away. Wanda was even more perceptive than she was, usually, and that meant that sometimes she could work out how Natasha was feeling even when Natasha thought she had it under control. "Whatever he did, he clearly feels sorry. You should go talk to him. Give him a free coffee; I'll pay."

"Why's it so important I do that?"

"Because," Wanda answered. "He's making me feel sorry for him. Go on, Romanoff."

Natasha sighed. "Free drink. You're paying?"

"Yes, now talk to him." Wanda waved her off with one tattooed hand, smiling a little. "Give me back that chocolate and go."

Natasha passed over the bottle of chocolate sauce with an irritated eye roll and padded out from behind the counter. It was suddenly difficult to look above her feet, because as much as she could pretend annoyance around Wanda, the truth of the matter was that she was confused and ashamed.

She had, as a matter of fact, noticed Steve's little sad-puppy glances, and after a good night of sleep and a particularly kind customer, she was in a good mood – a good enough mood to look back at their interaction the day before and cringe. She'd been unfair to Steve, maybe even unkind. Sure, maybe the drawings were unusual (and okay, slightly presumptuous as well), but he'd meant no harm by them and he was an artist. Presumably, that's what artists did. And while she knew she had been, to an extent, justified in her suspicion, he had no way of understanding why she'd snapped at him. For all she knew, he thought she hated him now, when it reality it was pretty much the opposite.

But admitting to being wrong to yell at him – and trying to explain that yelling without saying too much – seemed impossible. Would he even believe her? She didn't know, but Wanda was right, she needed to try to fix this.

She knew where his table was. She barely even had to look where she was going at this point, which was stupid but couldn't be helped anymore. Forget looking sexy or confident or put together, she just needed to make it to his table without talking herself out of this.

She glanced up as she got closer, smiling half-heartedly at Steve and twisting her ring around her finger. "Hey, Rogers."

He looked like a deer in headlights, ocean blue eyes wide and terrified. She felt a bit better about the situation on noticing how nervous he was; at least she wasn't the only anxious one here. "Hi," he stammered. She noted with a twinge of regret that he didn't have his sketchbook out today; his backpack sat uselessly on the floor by his feet. He had his hands curled around his coffee cup as if trying to keep them warm.

She pushed her hair behind her ear reflexively and gestured at his cup. "Are you done with that?"

"No… Why?" He looked worried. Like he thought she was going to steal his drink. She almost laughed.

"I was going to offer to get you a drink on the house. Since I made you spill yours yesterday and everything."

Steve blinked, straightening a bit and frowning. "What?"

"I'm offering to buy you a drink, Steve," she said, letting her smile get a bit wider. "I owe you one, after all."

His reaction was adorable and made her want to laugh at herself; she'd really been suspicious of this guy? He didn't have a mean bone in his body. Maybe this wasn't so bad. "But I… But you… You didn't make me spill that coffee, I was just clumsy and anyway I-"

She tsked quietly at him. "I interrupted an artist at work, what did I expect?"

"I don't actually like black coffee," Steve blurted. His eyes were still a bit panicked, like he thought she was only pretending not to be mad and if he told her that she'd blow up.

Nat hid her surprise, filing that fact away for later examination. "Well, you must have had an awful time making that your usual, then," she said lightly. "All the more reason I owe you a drink."

He was apparently unsure what to say, staring at her with a strangely thoughtful look on his face. He seemed about to say something, then looked down and sighed. "Thanks. But I… I don't think you owe me anythin'. I was bein' invasive and rude, so you shouldn't be apologizin' to me. I'm sorry."

Natasha smiled a little. "You're an artist, Steve. It's a little weird, all the drawing, but honestly I don't mind that much. I just... I used to do ballet and I'm too paranoid. If you want to draw me occasionally, fine. Just, maybe stick to drawing me as you see me." She winked, to let him know she wasn't angry, and shrugged carelessly. "So how about that drink?"

Steve grinned tentatively. Natasha loved that smile; it was hard sometimes to keep from smiling herself, at inopportune moments, when she'd look over and see him grinning. "I don't know. I'm not done with my coffee."

"You mean the black coffee that you don't actually like?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "That coffee?"

He looked down, his cheeks and jaw and the tips of his ears flushing red. "Um, yeah," he said. "I guess so."

"Well then, I'll make you whatever you want and you can go ahead and dump that." Natasha strode back to the counter, leaning over it. Wanda quickly came over, raising an eyebrow. "I'm paying."

Wanda smiled slightly and turned away, clearly proud of herself. Natasha sighed (she hated proving Wanda right) and went behind the counter, smiling as Steve caught up to her, and, hesitantly, sat down on one of the stools.

"So…" He was twisting his hands together in his lap, eyes glued to the counter like it was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen. "The pictures… They're not… I didn't… They didn't, um, mean… anythin'."

Natasha raised an eyebrow. "Are you asking me or telling me?" He was a rotten liar, usually, but at the moment she couldn't tell if he was lying or just nervous.

"I just mean…" Steve clenched his fists and looked up. "I just mean, I'm sorry. I'm not…" He grimaced and buried his face in his hands with a frustrated huff. "Forget it."

Natasha snorted, shook her head, and said quietly, "You mean just because you were drawing me doesn't mean you're interested in me."

He nodded quickly, straightening, relieved. "Yeah, that."

Whether that was true or not, Natasha was tired of this topic of conversation and could see that Steve was too, so she gestured to the menu. "You gonna pick a drink, Rogers, or do I have to have to make my best guess?"

"What would your best guess be?" he asked, not even looking at the menu. Either he already had a favorite, or he genuinely wanted to try whatever she suggested.

Natasha remembered that he'd come in the other day and ordered a raspberry mocha, so she cheated a bit. "Probably…" She put her fingers to her chin as if thinking hard. "A hot raspberry mocha with extra chocolate and some whipped cream and chocolate shavings on top."

Steve's eyes widened a little (most people had a similar reaction when they realized they could have chocolate shavings on top) and he shrugged, grinning. "Your best guess sounds fantastic. If you don't mind, I'd like to try that."

"Of course I don't mind," Natasha said, quickly redoing her ponytail. "I said anything on the house, and you made a marvelous choice." She winked and turned away, sticking her tongue out at Wanda as soon as she knew Steve couldn't see.

"You better be glad I'm too nice to say 'I told you so'," Wanda hissed, handing her a cup.

"You're an evil genius and you know it," Natasha answered with a scowl. "I swear you have mind-reading powers or something. It's not fair. I was perfectly happy being terrified and selfish, and then you just had to go make me talk to him."

"Oh please, you were totally looking for an excuse."

Natasha didn't dignify that remark with a reply. She _really_ hated proving Wanda right.

Steve had folded his arms on the table and seemed to have calmed down a bit by the time she finished making his drink; his eyes had actually glazed over a bit and he looked like he was thinking about something confusing.

"Here's your order, Mr. Rogers," she said, startling him so that he flinched back.

"Thanks." He smiled, recovering, and took the cup from her. She hadn't bothered to put a lid on it, so the whipped cream and chocolate towered above the rim of the cup like an old-fashioned English hairdo. He didn't even hesitate before taking a long sip, leaving a long stripe of whipped cream across his upper lip.

"Someone's in a hurry," Natasha teased, handing him a spoon and a napkin. "It isn't going anywhere."

Steve rolled his eyes, licked his lips, and accepted the items from her. "How do you know? What if it mutates into an evil whipped-cream monster that I coulda stopped if I'd just-" Then he stopped, as if his brain was just catching up with his words, and smiled sheepishly. "Never mind."

Natasha giggled (actually _giggled_ , when had she last done that?) and started making herself a hot cocoa. "Well, that would be bad. Lucky for you, I'm secretly a superhero and if your whipped cream decided to go rogue I could shoot it for you."

"Oh, that's a relief. Still, I better finish it fast. No sense in bein' careless." Steve raised his spoon, as if making a toast, and started taking huge spoonfuls of whipped cream and chocolate and shoveling them into his mouth.

Natasha giggled again, causing her to cover her mouth shamefacedly and shake her head. "You're ridiculous."

Steve blushed and shrugged. "I guess so." He kept eating his whipped cream with amusing alacrity though, so he probably wasn't offended.

Natasha finished off her hot cocoa with a cap of whipped cream and curled chocolate shavings and informed Clint that she was taking her break now. His reaction was about what she expected: he raised an eyebrow, nodded slowly, and spent most of her break with a shit-eating grin on his face.

When she seated herself on a stool next to Steve, for a moment his spoon faltered on its journey to his mouth before continuing, and he shifted uncomfortably as if he was considering bolting. But he didn't move, so Natasha took out her own spoon and dug into her own whipped cream.

"Got any plans today?" she asked.

"Not really. Got the day off work, so me and Bucky are goin' to go get lunch somewhere." Steve lifted his cup to take a sip of his mocha, grinning, and Natasha tried to recapture her previous interest in and admiration of Bucky because she _wanted_ to like someone Steve so obviously cared about, but… well, blind trust wasn't something she was good at.

"That's nice," she said, smiling.

Steve didn't notice her reluctance (how could he), and therefore kept sipping his drink. After a moment he looked down at his hands and asked, very quietly, "The other night, when you guys came over for the movie... Bucky said you left the apartment for a bit. I don't mean to pry, but if someone did somethin' to make you uncomfortable or anythin' like that, I'd sorta like to know."

Natasha entertained, for a moment, the idea of actually telling him what had happened. But of course she couldn't; that would involve sharing some version of what had happened with Brock and that was one thing she just couldn't do. She needed to pretend that Brock had never existed, to an extent; needed to pretend that the screwed up thing he'd called a relationship had never happened.

"I'm sorry," she said lamely, tiredly. "I just got nervous with all the people and Bucky..." She let herself tell the half-truth. "He kind of made me uncomfortable."

Immediately Steve's face cleared with a kind of understanding that she wasn't sure she liked; there was a compassion there, and a familiarity, like he was saying "I know what you've been through and I am sorry." She wanted to argue that he didn't know a damn thing about her, but how do you argue with a look? So she waited for him to voice his obvious thoughts so she could tell him off – embarrassing, really – but he never did. Instead, he just said, "I'm sorry. I'll keep that in mind. Did he do anything specific, or was it just a general feeling?"

Natasha hesitated. "Just general. I can be really irrational about that sort of thing," she said, dismissively.

That hateful understanding in Steve's eyes deepened, and she desperately wanted to change the subject, so she said, "You like your drink?"

He grinned, and it was remarkable how the expression chased away whatever he'd been feeling before. "It's great. Thanks."

"No problem." She, too, smiled and let the new vein of conversation drown out her recent frustration. "Better than black coffee, right?"

He chuckled shyly. "Yeah, definitely."

"Any particular reason you ordered that if you didn't really like it?'

Steve's eyes grew guarded and distant at the question. "It's a weird habit I have," he said, evasive. "I do it when I'm... when I'm havin' a bad day. It sometimes snaps me out of it... It's really stupid though." He shook his head with a wry smile and took a long swallow of his drink.

It occurred to Nat, possibly for the first time, that Steve might not be as put-together as he seemed. He was a bad liar, at least in the traditional sense, but maybe he was good at hiding things all the same.

Or maybe she was just reading into things too much. Everyone had their off days; just because Steve had looked strangely defensive just then didn't mean he was hiding anything.

"That's not that weird," she said, smiling. "We all have our quirks."

"Some of us more than others," he said with a snort.

Soon enough Clint beckoned for her to go back to work at the register, and, reluctantly, she did. Not before giving Steve a friendly smile to make sure he knew, once and for all, that she wasn't still mad.

Bucky ended up coming to meet Steve at the coffee shop; Natasha noticed him only a moment before the door opened and the bell dinged to announce his arrival. He sauntered in much as he always did, with a cheery wave at Clint and a politely-smiling nod to Natasha. She couldn't tell if he was still upset at her; he was frustratingly difficult to get a read on.

She nodded back and took the order of the next customers in line, a small group of teenage girls with bleached-blond hair and nervous, too-loud laughter.

Steve got up, slung his back-pack over his shoulder, and said something animatedly about his car, gesturing vaguely towards the outside of the coffee shop.

Natasha noted new things about Bucky now: the way he was keeping a surreptitious eye on the windows and door, how he kept his artificial limb tucked close to his side as if afraid someone was going to touch it, the dark grey suspicion in his eyes every time someone new walked into the café, the hard, unyielding lines of his jaw and close-drawn eyebrows. She tried to catch another glimpse of his tattoo, but his shirt collar was too high.

She smiled falsely at the next customer. "What can I get for you?" Thoughts were flashing through her head now that she wasn't sure she could stop. Gripping fingers, accusations, shouting, breaking dishes, bruises, a smile like a wolf's snarl, words and lies and pain and promises and-

"Nat."

She jolted, hands shaking, and Clint's hand on her shoulder steadied her.

"It's okay," he murmured, nudging her out of his way to finish taking her customer's order. "Take a minute."

She let out a trembling breath and leaned against the counter, composing herself as fast as she could. Bucky and Steve were on their way to the door, and it didn't appear that they had noticed her lapse. The other employees, to her relief, left her alone.

Clint left the register and came over to her, concern sketched all over his features. "What happened?"

"I don't know," she sighed, rubbing her face. "He's just… I just can't separate him from that tattoo and what it means, and I… Since he's a soldier he's really careful of his surroundings, I guess, but I just can't separate that and… him."

Clint knew who she meant; with a long, compassionate sigh he put his arms around her, and she reluctantly let him pull her into a hug. "You sure you don't want me to refuse him service?" he asked quietly.

She shook her head, even though the idea suddenly sounded a lot more attractive. Steve would never understand, and anyway, she had to be better than this. Had to be stronger than this.

Clint was clearly dissatisfied with that decision, but he just nodded and stepped back. "You good to work, or do you wanna go home?"

"I'm fine," she told him. His frown deepened, and she sighed and looked down. "I can manage, Clint, honest. Let it go."

He did (he was good at knowing when not to push her) and walked away. Thankfully there was no one else in line for the moment, so she reached for her hot cocoa – not so hot anymore – and took a long swallow.

At least she'd managed to patch things up with Steve. That thought let her breathe easier again. That was all fine. He wasn't mad at her, she wasn't _really_ mad at him, and for some reason he'd lied to her about liking black coffee so much…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this chapter ended in angst, but at least I gave you the fluff to start off. Don't worry, Natasha will get over her distrust-Bucky phase, it just might take a little while.
> 
> In case y'all haven't figured out, the song lyrics in the beginning of the chapters (they're on all the chapters now, welcome to my new formatting) leave out quite a lot of the song because I just put in whatever parts fit the story/characters most, regardless of which lyrics those are.
> 
> Constructive criticism always welcome, compliments even more so. ;)


	6. Heart Attack

_Never break a sweat for the other guys  
_ _When you come around, I get paralyzed  
_ _And every time I try to be myself  
_ _It comes out wrong like a cry for help_

 _It's just not fair  
_ _Pain's more trouble than love is worth  
_ _I gasp for air  
_ _It feels so good, but you know it hurts_

 _But you make me wanna act like a girl  
_ _Paint my nails and wear perfume, for you,  
_ _Make me so nervous that I just can't hold your hand_

 _You make me glow,  
_ _But I cover up, won't let it show,  
_ _So I'm puttin' my defenses up  
_ _'Cause I don't wanna fall in love  
_ _If I ever did that, I think I'd have a heart attack  
_ _I think I'd have a heart attack  
_ _I think I'd have a heart attack_

 

"You kiddin' me, Stevie?" Bucky said. His eyebrows had been up near his hairline for the past five minutes and were now in danger of climbing right into his long brown hair. "I swear, every time I turn my back you do somethin' else stupid."

Steve tried to be offended, but since Bucky was more or less right, he just sighed and shook his head, chuckling half-heartedly at himself. "I'm not kidding."

"I knew somethin' like that was gonna happen," Bucky practically crowed, a slow grin making its way onto his face. "At least she knows you're interested now."

"I'm not!" Steve tried. Then he stopped, and shook his head. "At least, I told her I'm not."

"What, and you think she believed you? Come on, punk, you drew multiple pictures of her and one of 'em was an imaginative piece. It wouldn't take a genius to figure that one out."

"Well, I don't know if you've noticed, Buck, but likin' dames has never turned out too well for me."

"Peggy did."

Steve shook his head. "For a while, sure. But I don't think anyone could get that lucky twice. And Natasha… She's nice, but I doubt I'm her type."

Bucky snorted, shaking his head and taking another massive bite of his hamburger. "You always say that," he said around the mouthful of food. Steve wrinkled his nose in amused disgust but didn't disagree. "You can't just assume. And anyway, when have you ever given a girl a fair chance?"

"Me?" Steve hardly knew how to react. He gave lots of girls chances, when he liked them. He just wasn't the kind of guy women felt attracted to or safe with. When had he ever discouraged a beautiful woman from spending time with him?

"Yeah you, you dumbass," Bucky snorted, swallowed, set down his food, and got a bit more serious. "Before Peggy, you'd always meet girls and it was like you were expectin' to have to fight 'em. They'd say hi, talk to you real nice, and you'd be polite but definitely not encouragin'. Don't tell me you've forgotten that brunette with the lazy eye that you just stopped talkin' to one day. She liked you, Stevie."

"I thought she liked you!"

"You always think that."

"Because they all do! They make friends with me for a few weeks and then they ask for your number and I don't hear from them again."

Bucky scowled. "You know there are some that you've scared off before they ever showed any interest in me. You're so busy feelin' sorry for yourself that you can't trust that maybe somebody actually likes you. You've hurt a couple of nice girls that way, Steve."

Steve looked down, tracing one of his tattoos with an awkward hand. He really wanted to argue, and a retort was on the tip of his tongue, but he felt terribly guilty because he realized Bucky might be right. It was true that a lot of girls had either ignored him or, worse, used him to get to Bucky, but if he was honest with himself, maybe he had taken some things the wrong way. He'd made unfair assumptions based on little evidence and pulled out to save himself the risk.

"Whatever, Buck," he grumbled, quickly eating more of his burger.

His friend didn't say any more on the subject, instead going back to talking about Natasha. "She's gorgeous, alright. There's somethin' weird about her, though, but I think that's just… you know." He gestured at his head, smiling shame-facedly.

"Well, actually…" Steve tried to word his statement carefully. "Her going out of the apartment… she said you make her… uncomfortable. She said she was… Well, she wasn't doing well with all the new people."

Bucky's face cleared a bit and he nodded, slowly. "Okay. Maybe I should give her some space?"

Steve nodded reluctantly. He wasn't sure what Bucky could have done to make Natasha nervous, but he did know that it probably had very little to do with Bucky's own actions and more to do with associations. Bucky's therapist said stuff like that a lot, that the things that freaked Bucky out weren't frightening because they were actually bad, but because they reminded him of something else that was. Usually, Bucky made fun of things like that. He said that was a stupid thing to say because _obviously_ he wasn't scared of the Target cashier.

Steve thought maybe Bucky just made fun of his therapist because he didn't want to admit that she said things he needed to hear.

Bucky smiled half-heartedly. "Now I have a good reason for leavin' you alone with her all the time," he said. "I expect you to take advantage of this golden opportunity or else I'll kick your punk ass to Jersey."

Steve couldn't help laughing, although personally he was convinced that even if Natasha wanted to be his friend, there was no way she'd be interested in dating him. Still, he told Bucky he'd try and then had to listen to his best friend talk like Yoda for the next ten minutes.

It was true, he liked Natasha. What he wasn't so sure about was whether or not he wanted to risk disappointment again just because she was nice to him. And anyway, it was possible that he only liked her _because_ she was nice to him. He wasn't going to risk ruining their friendship over a crush. Not this time.

* * *

 

Clint cornered Natasha by her car when she finished work for the day, sauntering up and sticking his leg in the way of the car door so she couldn't close it. "Hey, I wanna talk to you."

She sighed. "Not in the mood, Clint."

"I don't mean about Bucky or anything," he said, and his eyes glinted with that teasing light she knew all too well. "Can I just come over and annoy you for a bit later?"

Natasha didn't admit it, but she was glad he'd suggested that. She wanted company tonight – she didn't think she could stand being alone – and she hadn't really had a good talk with Clint for a while. She snorted and shook her head at him. "Sure, Barton. If you think Laura will let you."

"Laura isn't the boss of me," he grumbled, but Natasha knew that was bullshit, so she just raised an eyebrow and started to pull her car door closed. "Hang on." Clint smiled wryly at her, his eyes worried. "Don't… don't get too lonely. You need me, you need anything, you can tell me. I don't mind coming over earlier than planned."

Natasha nodded quickly. "I know. I'll be fine. See you later."

He stepped aside, and she closed her door and turned the car keys.

She and Clint decided that he would come over to see her at around seven thirty for dessert (because Laura was many things but she was not a baker, and Natasha could apparently make a better pie than anyone else Clint knew), and Natasha busied herself for the rest of the evening making her favorite potato soup. It kept her mind off the resurfacing memories, kept her from dwelling on things that she didn't need to think about anymore. She was safe now, or at least, mostly safe, and that part of her life was over.

It wasn't so much that she was afraid he would find her. That was a possibility, if not a likely one. It was more that she hated that her own head was so messed up, hated that he'd walked off and gone back to doing whatever sick, twisted shit he was up to while all she had left was fear and walls around her heart a mile wide and high.

She whipped together an apple pie, put it in the oven, and ate her soup. Liho tried to get her to play, but Natasha ignored the cat until finally Liho gave up and padded away to sit in her favorite chair.

Clint showed up fifteen minutes early with a can of Bud Lite and the remnants of pink eyeshadow on his eyelids.

Natasha couldn't decide whether to comment first on his makeup or his awful choice of drink, but she settled for a, "Liho, what in the world did you drag into my house?"

Her cat looked up her with a summarily unimpressed meow and walked away from them – she didn't like Clint, probably because he always smelled like dog. "Even she doesn't want you," Natasha said, stepping out of the way so Clint could close her door and walk into the kitchen.

"Rude," Clint grumbled, swallowing a sip of his beer. "And after I invited myself over to save you the trouble, too."

She laughed and pointed at the pie. "Have at it."

"Yes!" Her friend plunked his beer can down on the counter and tugged open her silverware drawer to get a fork and a pie server.

"What's with the makeup?" she asked, leaning against the counter and eyeing the giant slice he cut out of the pie with a raised eyebrow. "It doesn't really work on you."

"Tell that to Lila," he huffed. "She wanted to give me a makeover, so I had to let her put pink eyeshadow and purple lipstick and some sparkly blush on me, and I think maybe this was an attempt at painting my nails." He held up his hands, and Natasha finally noticed the purple smeared messily on his left fingertips. "She said the purple would go with my work uniform – I didn't have the heart to tell her it wouldn't."

Natasha smiled and walked around Clint to get her own pie. He liked to pretend to be tough and grumpy, but he owned a coffee shop and a golden retriever and let his little girl do his make-up. There was a reason he was her best friend.

"So what's up with you?" he asked, words garbled around the food in his mouth. "This is good."

Natasha laughed. "Nothing, really. I cooked all evening – made my favorite soup."

"Yum," Clint said contentedly. "Laura made shepherd's pie. That stuff is addictive, I think."

"Probably so."

She cut herself a piece of the pie, pointedly taking less than Clint had and giving him a look. "You always do this wrong."

He shrugged. "Yeah, but I just want a big piece. I don't care if it's not even with the rest of the pie."

Natasha shook her head at him. "Shame on you. That is not how pie is done."

He shrugged again. "Yep, still don't care."

She snorted and started eating her own piece of pie. Clint liked to disregard the unspoken rules of manners – he had very little patience for that kind of thing. Unless he was working, then he was the soul of cordiality… only to complain to Natasha later about how stupid people were. But one did _not_ cut pie like that. Ridiculous.

"So," he said, fork pointed at her. "You doing okay?"

"No. Not the best," Natasha admitted. She took a bite of her pie, organizing her jumbled thoughts into order. "I kind of want to ask Bucky about that tattoo, but… I just don't know what he'll say or do. It could be nothing. Or it could put me in a lot of danger."

Clint nodded. "Maybe I could ask him? That would give us a buffer and he might just think I'm curious."

Natasha didn't want to know, in a way. Whatever the danger was, she didn't want to burst the bubble just yet. But she also realized that if one of them asked Bucky about it, they would have more control over any situation that followed the question. "Okay. That seems like a good idea." She sighed and looked away.

"It could just be a coincidence," Clint said quietly. He sounded no more convinced than she felt.

"It could." But that wasn't likely.

Her friend touched her hand reassuringly, sighing. "Look, Nat… I'm sorry, again, about all this." He grinned guiltily. "I keep thinking I should be able to do more to make sure you're safe, but, well… I'm not legally allowed to own a gun and I don't have any connections and I barely know how to throw a good punch."

"You helped me make a new life, Clint. That's been enough." It was true. He had helped her get an apartment, a fake ID, new documents, the works. He'd been the one to suggest she take back her Russian heritage and to give her a job.

"I know, but-"

"I never asked you to be my bodyguard. You've already done more than enough to help me and you keep on helping still."

He sighed and nodded, lightly tapping his fist on the counter. Sometimes Natasha couldn't believe how hard he could look, how dangerous. He wasn't a dangerous man – actually he was the best person she knew. But she knew what he'd done, even if she couldn't always reconcile that story with this man who raised two (soon to be three) kids and who let his daughter smear color all over his face and who cut pie in uneven slices.

"What about Steve?" he asked suddenly, grinning. She didn't quite manage to stop the blush that heated her cheeks. "What are you thinking about him?"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh come on," Clint snorted. "He has a crush on you. Big-time. You gonna go after that? He's pretty nice."

"Well yeah..." Natasha didn't know what she thought about this conversation. She and Steve Rogers? Yeah, that would be crash-and-burn. She said so.

Clint rolled his eyes, leaning forward, pointing with his fork again. "How do you know? Come on, Nat, it's adorable. He's actually shorter than you. And he's an artist. _And_ his best friend is ex-military. If anyone is perfect for you, it'd be him."

Natasha snorted. "Uhuh."

Clint gave her a long-suffering look, shook his head, stood, and stretched. "Well, I should be going. Thanks for the pie, Romanoff."

She stood, picking up the pie tin, and handed it to him. "Here, take the rest home to Laura. Just don't let Lila and Cooper see it." She got a sheet of plastic wrap out of a drawer and handed that to him too. "Bye, Clint. Thanks for everything."

He grinned and hugged her. "You too, Nat. See you in the morning. Think about what I said! You have a good shot with Steve, here, don't throw it away."

She followed him to the door, watched him leave, closed her door behind him and locked the three different locks. Alone with only Liho and the memories and the fear.

…

_"What's this?" Natalie lazily traced her fingers over the curling tentacles on Brock's chest. "It's kind of creepy."_

_Brock shrugged sleepily and pushed her hand away. "Just a cool tattoo."_

_Natalie rolled her eyes at him. "Convincing, Rumlow. What is it, a band symbol? Your gang symbol? Something else incriminating?"_

_"I'm not telling you that, doll. You're in the information market, I can hardly trust you to keep information on me a secret. You could get rich on this kind of thing."_

_"Someone else out there might know what this tattoo is," she mused, half-kidding. "I can still tell the right people you have it – You're right, I'm sure someone would pay good money to know."_

_Brock's sleep-heavy eyes flashed dangerous, and he sat up, grabbing her wrist in a tight grip. "You do that, I'll kill you. Don't think you're safe from me just because we're sleeping together, little red."_

_Natalie twisted out of his grip, scowling, and slid out of the bed. "Don't worry, Rumlow, I can keep secrets. Let's just call them my insurance – I know I'm not safe with you."_

_He chuckled, low and fierce. "You like playing with fire, don't you, Natalie?"_

_"Fire is easy. It's people that are risky."_

_"You like taking risks, then?"_

_Natalie smiled at him. "I like_ this _risk." She could get caught by this man all too easily. It was true, she liked risks. She liked dancing with danger. And Brock Rumlow was the most dangerous man she'd ever met._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo, more backstory for Natasha. I'm technically not giving them in order, although I'm trying to mostly be chronological.
> 
> This chapter was fun because the goal was to have the babies being pestered by their friends, although Clint did less pestering than I planned. Whatever. :)
> 
> I have got a job! Yay me! And a driver's license. And I'm nearly ready to make a college decision guys. This is crazzzy.
> 
> Love y'all for your patience - please review!


	7. Brother

_Ramblers in the wilderness we can't find what we need_   
_We get a little restless from the searching_   
_Get a little worn down in between_   
_Like a bull chasing the matador is the man left to his own schemes_   
_Everybody needs someone beside em' shining like a lighthouse from the sea_

_Brother let me be your shelter_   
_Never leave you all alone_   
_I can be the one you call_   
_When you're low_   
_Brother let me be your fortress_   
_When the night winds are driving on_   
_Be the one to light the way  
_ _Bring you home_

Bucky nodded towards the kitchen. "She's cute."

Steve blinked and followed Bucky's line of sight. His friend was referring to Wanda, an employee who always wore a lot of jewelry and had a full sleeve of tattoos. She didn't work very often while Steve was there, so he didn't think Bucky had seen her before. "Yeah. She's friends with Natasha."

Bucky chuckled a little. "Well, they do work together."

Steve rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean."

Natasha was making a drink but she stopped and waved at them. Steve happily waved back, Bucky just grinned and nodded.

"Maybe you could invite her to come over too," Steve said, looking back at Wanda. "Or we could make it less awkward and ask Nat to ask her."

Bucky nodded slowly. Steve knew this was a lot for him, but he also knew that Bucky wanted to ask her out (he'd seen that look many times in the past). The best thing he could suggest was a compromise that wouldn't make anyone uncomfortable.

The two of them sauntered up to the register, Bucky lagging a bit behind Steve. Natasha smiled. "What can I do for you gentlemen this evening?" Clint wandered over and stood next to Nat, but didn't say anything. It was a strangely defensive position. Or maybe Steve was reading too much into it. He could almost feel Bucky stiffening. He ordered first. "Small white chocolate mocha, please."

"And you, Bucky?"

"I'm good actually, thanks. But, um…" Bucky stopped and Steve glanced at him to give him a reassuring smile. "We're doin' another movie night, at my place this time, and, uh, we wanted to invite you both."

Clint grinned broadly and Natasha did too. "I don't know, you guys weren't too kind to our choice of pizza last time," he chuckled.

Bucky laughed too, relieved. "No, guess not. But it's burgers tonight. 7 o'clock."

Steve took his change from Natasha, holding his breath.

"Sure, guys." She took out a napkin and a pen and handed it to Bucky. "Write down your address?"

Bucky started scribbling, and Steve finally noticed his right hand shaking like a leaf. He pretended he hadn't seen. Bucky, still looking down, cleared his throat. "Can I ask a favor? I, uh… could you guys invite Wanda?" His eyes focused on the napkin, he missed the surprised, then amused smile that Steve saw spread over Nat's face.

"We'll see," she said, eyes twinkling.

Bucky let out a soft sigh, finished writing, and handed the napkin back. "I hope none of you are allergic to dogs," he said. "I've got a German Shepherd."

Both of their friends assured him that they weren't, and he and Steve made their escape after collecting Steve's drink.

Once outside, Bucky let out a long, shaky breath and shoved his hands through his hair. "I hate this," he said shortly. Steve nodded sympathetically, unsure what to say. This rarely got easier for either of them.

"They're comin' though," he suggested, smiling. "And Wanda might be. So that's a good start."

Bucky snorted bitterly. "I was so awkward. Freakin' useless, Stevie."

"No it isn't. You were fine. I've done worse, you know."

"I know, I know." Bucky shook his head and sped up, headed for his car. Steve had to practically jog to keep up with his long strides. "What's the point? I keep doin' this and I keep makin' a fool of myself."

"Buck-"

"I know, Steve. I shouldn't be talkin' like this. Positivity and all that shit." He looked over at Steve, realized how fast he was going, and slowed down. "But I'm tired of feelin' stupid, Steve. I can't even talk to a pretty girl anymore, gotta go through her friend like… Forget it." He cringed.

Steve sighed. "Let's just go, huh?"

"Yeah."

They got in Bucky's car to go back to his apartment. Steve was going to help him grill the burgers and set up for company. Bucky's apartment was bigger than his, which was good since they were inviting Sam (Steve's therapist) and Jemma (Bucky's therapist) as well as the three café employees. The large gathering hadn't quite been Bucky's idea, but he didn't seem to mind too much. He knew everyone except Wanda. The hard part had been inviting people.

"I'm still not sure inviting the shrinks was a good idea," Bucky said flippantly. He was mixing the meat and eggs and onions for their burgers. "What if seeing all those people on couches just sends them into therapy mode?"

Steve snorted. "I'm sure they'll contain themselves." Sam was a great friend, even when Steve was annoyed at him for asking too many questions. And Simmons, as far as he could tell, was a sweet, thoughtful woman. Both genuinely cared and for the most part didn't say stupid, meaningless things.

"You're right. I just dunno how to introduce 'em," Bucky sighed. "'Hello, ma'am, you look lovely tonight. Would you like to meet my therapist? She helps me with my out-of-control PTSD, self-hatred, and anxiety.'"

Steve laughed awkwardly. "Yeah. You really think I want Nat knowin' Sam's my therapist, either? I'm plannin' on introducin' him as a friend. I don't think Sam's gonna spill the beans, even though this'll definitely annoy him."

"Good idea."

It was a point that Steve had spent a long time considering. The stigma around mental illness and therapy was lessening somewhat, but he still didn't really want to explain to the woman he liked that he had to go to regular therapy lest he start cutting again. Not only was that awkward, it was way too personal. Sam would be a little frustrated that Steve was hiding this from Nat, but it wasn't like he was never going to tell her. Just not now.

He helped Bucky shape the meat into patties, then they started frying them. Ideally they'd grill them, but it was still a little too cold for that.

"You seem kinda upset today," Steve said carefully, stepping away to get buns and condiments out of the fridge. "Somethin' happen?"

"No. I'm just tired." Bucky used his foot to nudge Felix out of the kitchen. The dog wasn't technically allowed in the kitchen area but, despite his training, usually came in anyway. "Don't worry 'bout it, Steve."

"You know I can't help it." Steve figured he spent fifty percent of his worry on Bucky's well-being. "Just don't push yourself, alright?"

"I know." Bucky grinned at him.

Not for the first time, Steve marveled at the fact that Bucky was actually here, alive, safe. Maybe not the same, in many ways, but that was infinitely better than the alternative. It had been total hell believing he'd been dead for two years – he didn't think anything could be worse.

Someone knocked on Bucky's door, and his friend went to get it himself, Felix following with a happily-wagging tail. It was Sam, closely followed by Wanda. Steve sympathized with her as she peeked past Sam and didn't see Nat or Clint.

"Hey, Sam." Bucky summoned one of his rare, charming smiles to give to Wanda. "Hey. Wanda, right?"

"Yes." She walked in, looking small. Bucky fell in next to her, and although Steve could tell he was nervous, he looked so much like his old self that Steve suddenly felt a lump form in his throat. "And you're Bucky." She had a strong, Russian-sounding accent.

"The very same. Pleased to have you, ma'am. Would you like water? Soda? Beer?"

Wanda smiled. She had knowing, kind eyes and a gentle face that didn't quite match her tattoos and thick eye makeup. Steve was pretty sure he would like her. "I'm fine, thanks."

Bucky nodded. "Okay." Steve could tell he wanted to make a smart remark but was too uncomfortable. "How was work?"

Wanda smiled politely but genuinely. "It was good. Nothing too crazy happened." She chuckled a little. "I'm glad you invited me – I'm sorry you couldn't ask me yourself. I was a little busy."

Bucky shifted his weight, managing a suave smirk. "Me too."

Steve smiled and stopped watching since he was supposed to be making sure the burgers were cooked right. Besides, watching Bucky trying to relearn how to flirt, how to charm, how to be himself – it made him more anxious than even talking to Natasha did.

Natasha herself was the next to arrive, then Simmons and Clint in quick succession. Steve and Bucky stubbornly introduced their respective therapists as friends, prompting both doctors to give them scolding looks before smiling and shaking hands. Steve shrugged a little at Sam, and the man visibly sighed. But he really wasn't that upset – if he had been, Steve would have gritted his teeth and introduced him properly.

"So, what's the plan?" Natasha asked. She'd perched herself on the floor next to the couch, facing the door, arms wrapped around her knees. Steve wanted to go sit next to her, but he had to finish setting out the food, and he still felt unsure how to behave now that he'd so dramatically revealed his feelings (and then said there were no feelings to reveal).

"Well, Peggy isn't here yet, and we can't start anything without her," Bucky said. He'd managed to seat himself and Wanda on the same couch, close to Natasha, although with Wanda between the two of them she had a bit of a buffer. "But you could help us pick a few movie options."

Natasha huffed an appreciative laugh and shook her head. "Alright. Good idea."

Clint wandered over and stood just behind Bucky, and Steve joined them after setting out some ketchup and mayonnaise, sitting on the floor by Natasha with a tentative smile. She grinned back at him, no different than she ever had. His heart fell even as he let out a quiet sigh of relief.

"What's this tattoo, man?" Clint's voice came light and curious, and Steve turned to look. Bucky stiffened and turned around, self-consciously tugging at his hair.

"Tattoo? I don't have any tattoos… Oh." Bucky reached around and felt at the back of his neck. "This isn't… It's not, um…" He stopped and shuddered, and Steve and Simmons immediately hurried to crouch in front of him. They knew the signs – he could very well have a panic attack. Bucky tried to wave them away but he was trembling, and his muscles were incredibly tense. "It's not a tattoo. Just a scar."

"It's a really detailed-"

"Mr. Barton, please shut up," Simmons said tersely.

Clint shut up.

"Sorry, guys, I just…" Bucky shivered again, then Steve saw his eyes glaze over. A flashback.

"Wanda, get off the couch," Simmons said, and as Wanda obeyed, she and Steve sat down on either side of Bucky. Removing him from the room would be impractical and wouldn't help much, so they just focused on trying to get him to recall where he really was and to keep him from hurting anyone (including himself).

"Hey Buck, look at me, wouldja pal? Come on, jerk, we're gonna watch a movie and we can't start it without you."

Bucky was breathing hard, muscles flexing and relaxing, eyes flicking sightlessly back and forth. He looked pained, terrified.

Simmons' gentle voice took on a coaxing cast. "Bucky, remember you're at home." Felix bounded over and did as he always did in these situations, nudged his head between Bucky's legs and peered up at him, whining, his whole body wagging. "You have some friends over. It's been a few years since you got home, remember?"

Bucky suddenly let out a choked scream and curled in on himself in his seat, his forehead touching the top of Felix's head, hands curling into tight fists. The dog immediately started licking his face as Steve put a cautious but insistent hand on his back, heart wrenching. "Bucky, come on."

Bucky's scream died into a series of hiccupping, broken sobs, and then it was another brief moment before his stuttering breaths evened out to a forced quiet steadiness and he started petting Felix with cautious hands.

"Are you alright?" Simmons asked softly.

Bucky stiffened, as if dreading facing their scrutiny, then slowly straightened up. His eyes were red and sweat beaded his brow. "Sorry. Yeah. I'm gonna... Excuse me." He stood, and Steve glanced sadly at Simmons before following his best friend, Felix trotting at his side.

Clint called after them, causing Steve to pause and look back. "I'm sorry."

He nodded reassuringly and turned away, closing Bucky's bedroom door behind him.

"Hey," he said softly. "It's okay."

"Nothin' about that was okay," Bucky growled in a low voice. "Don't patronize me, Stevie. That was humiliating. Hell, I didn't even... I didn't remember this." He rubbed the back of his neck.

Steve hadn't seen most of Bucky's scars – his friend wore a lot of layers to hide the damage done to his body by the years of torture. He'd only seen part of the scar Clint had presumably been talking about – it was an irregularly uniform mark, that was true. "What is it?" he asked, trying to sound like he didn't really need to know. To keep the pressure off. He was so concerned.

"They... God, Steve, you don't wanna know this." Bucky shook his head. He always said that.

"But I can probably help. I want to." Steve stepped towards him, aching to do something, anything to be useful. He felt as if he could do so little for Bucky as it was, but he could listen and he could encourage. Sometimes that wasn't enough, but he had to focus on what he could do. That was what Sam said.

"Well I don't want you to know, alright?" Bucky looked away. "It doesn't matter anyway. Let's just get back out there."

"You sure you want to? I think they'd understand if we cancelled."

"No!" Bucky snapped, then closed his eyes and exhaled. "Sorry. No. And make them think I'm some kind of invalid? They'll never be comfortable around me again." His tone implied that they still might not.

"Right. Of course. Sorry." Steve nodded.

Bucky combed his hair, petted Felix, washed his face, and then they walked back out into the living room. Much to Steve's relief, the group was talking about what movie to watch as if nothing had happened. Peggy had come in and was comfortably installed on a kitchen chair they'd pulled over to the couch.

Clint strode up to them, expression embarrassed. "Bucky, I'm sorry."

"It's fine."

Clint, rather than pressing the issue, nodded gratefully and smiled. "We've decided on either The Incredibles, Despicable Me, or Les Misẻrables."

"One of those things is not like the others," Bucky snorted. "I vote Incredibles."

No one argued. They were all back in their previous seats, leaving only one spot for Bucky: next to Wanda. Steve watched anxiously as his friend put in the DVD and then sat down next to the young woman, but she had such a good poker face that he had no idea what she was thinking.

Natasha looked troubled. She smiled at Steve as he sat next to her, but her eyes were tired and worried.

She was probably feeling sorry for Bucky – in fact, it was likely that everyone else was too. Steve tried his quiet best to reassure her. "He's fine. This happens sometimes, you know. It's bad but he's getting better."

Natasha smiled wryly, almost as if amused, and nodded. "Yeah, I know. I just feel bad."

Steve frowned, unsatisfied with that answer, and suddenly wondered if he'd read her discomfort correctly. Probably not, knowing him. Whatever the case, he turned his attention back to the TV and let it go.

* * *

Natasha glanced over at Bucky as the movie drew to a close. He still looked rather shaken, although he was hiding it admirably as always. That, more than anything, convinced her that his reaction to Clint's question had been real. If he'd been putting on a show, he would likely try to play it up a bit more for sympathy. More interesting, that meant his tattoo was really not a tattoo. There were only a few other things it could be, and none of those options were kind ones for Bucky, although they were a relief to her. It seemed highly unlikely at this point that he had ever willingly worked with Brock.

She wondered how Wanda felt – her friend was a compassionate, understanding woman with an interest in art and psychology, but Nat was not confident in Wanda's ability to navigate the difficulties of a relationship with Bucky. Because that was definitely what Bucky wanted, and Wanda… Well, Nat knew for a fact that Wanda thought he was adorable. But attraction didn't equal compatibility, and it probably wouldn't be a healthy relationship.

Steve, on the other hand, had proven yet again that appearances were deceiving. Sure, Natasha had sort of known that Bucky was a veteran, and that he probably had PTSD, but that didn't translate into situations like these for her. Now she had a great deal more compassion for Bucky, and a strange, hopeful excitement for what could be for herself and Steve. He had handled everything with such practiced ease – she allowed herself to wonder if maybe, just maybe, she could trust him with her own issues. She had never before supposed that the innocent, cheerful artist could be that collected and knowledgeable about issues like this.

But she didn't want to risk that much over one incident. Steve was… incredible, honestly. Bucky just might be (although she wasn't quite ready to trust him). But no matter the case, there were too many complications and too many dangers of toying with the emotions of a person like Steve. He deserved someone better than her, someone with less baggage.

Someone who didn't have innocent blood on their hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey look, Grace is already back with another chapter!
> 
> I actually feel really iffy about the last bit of this chapter, which is weird because the emotional angsty scenes are usually easy for me. I guess I'm just really concerned that I might not have handled Bucky's flashback well because I've not written one from an outside perspective before. Plus I in no way wanted that to become just a convenient way to get Steve and Nat closed to being together. Because it has helped but that wasn't my primary purpose. Anyway, hopefully it's better than I think it is.
> 
> Love y'all! Please review.


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